The result is at times confusing and exasperating, but always nail-biting and exciting. Innocuous and, to the narrator, unimportant revelations completely overturn the earlier version of the tale. The end result is that you simply don’t know the real nature of the plot’s events once you have finished.ĭescribed in this way, the novel sounds quite dispiriting, but Pears is deft at teasing and enchanting the reader. Each of them has their own reasons for not telling the truth: they have a desire to obscure or hide from their actions their perception is coloured by religious or political preconceptions or they are - quite simply - mad. The book is actually a single story told four times, by four different narrators. Set largely in Oxford, the main fascination and brilliance of the novel is its supremely confident structure and plot. Iain Pears’ intricately plotted, highly intelligent and very enjoyable novel, An Instance of the Fingerpost, explores the troubling and problematic side of the historical movement labelled with the smug term ‘The Enlightenment’.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |